The Most And Least Charitable States In The U.S. In 2017

Americans are a generous people. According to the Charities Aid Foundation—a UK-based organization that provides services and assistance to charities around the world—144 million people in the United States donated money to charity in the past year, and 106 million donated their time.

The foundation also reported that 56% of Americans had donated money, volunteered time or helped out a stranger this past year, placing it fifth among 140 nations (Myanmar came in first, with 65% of its populace taking action in one or more of those categories).

To get a sense of how the U.S. rates on a more granular geographic level, we looked to a report from WalletHub—a personal finance information company—that breaks down philanthropic activity by state and scores it. To check out the top five, click on the slide show below. For the full ranking, scroll to the end of this article.

To rate states on their philanthropic zeal, WalletHub used a methodology that focused on volunteering and service and charitable giving. Each category accounted for 50 points on a 100-point scale, and each was broken up into a number of metrics, like volunteered hours per capita, community service requirements in schools, share of income donated and share of population donating time and money, to name but a few. Data used comes from U.S. Census Bureau, Corporation for National and Community Service, Gallup and other sources.

Topping all others states in 2017, as it has done for the past two years, is Utah. With an overall score of 76.9, the state ranked seventh in the category of volunteering and service, and first in charitable giving. Utah has the highest volunteer rate, the highest percentage of population that donates time, and is tied for first place for giving away the most money and having the largest portion of its population that make donations.

Ranked second overall this year is Maryland, with a score of 74.14. The state ranked third in the volunteering and service category and fourth in charitable giving. Maryland ranked fifth among states whose population donated the largest percentage of its income and tied for fourth among those boasting the highest percentage of their populations that donated.

In third place, with an overall score of 72.83, is Minnesota, which ranked third in the charitable giving category and ninth in volunteering and service. The state ranked second among those with the highest percentage of people who donated time and third among those with the highest rates of volunteering.